CLARKSVILLE — A Clarksville woman is suing her hometown after claiming a series of amendments to the city’s ordinances prohibiting the ownership of roosters is unconstitutional.

Attorneys for Frances Oberste filed the complaint in Johnson County Circuit Court, stating the city first passed an ordinance on Oct. 10, 2011, placing certain restrictions on the keeping of fowl and other livestock, as well as limiting the number of chickens that could be maintained on a tract of two acres or less and prohibiting roosters on such tracts within city limits.

The city’s municipal code was again amended in April, according to the complaint, providing a blanket prohibition on any roosters at all within the city limits.

According to the complaint, Oberste and her late husband have owned almost 50 acres of homestead farm property for more than 45 years, on which they have raised chickens, barrel racing horses and other livestock, and stated Oberste “cannot raise chickens without both females and males of the species, i.e. roosters, thus making the blanket prohibition on roosters a functional prohibition on raising chickens at all within city limits of Clarksville.”

Oberste’s husband was cited in November by the Clarksville Police Department and directed to remove the roosters from an approximately 10-acre portion of his property located on South Skaggs Road, prior to the amendment prohibiting the ownership of roosters on parcels of land exceeding two acres. The citation was later followed by a criminal summons.

Oberste’s husband died in April, and Oberste was again cited in June and directed to remove the roosters.

Oberste, represented by the Streett Law Firm of Russellville, is asking for a re-evaluation of the ordinance, “based upon its irrationality and its corresponding violation of (Oberste’s) constitutional private property rights.” The complaint also cited there are “numerous property owners harboring roosters” within the city, “specifically including but not limited to, commercial broiler operations which harbor hundreds of roosters at any one time.

“Not withstanding explicit knowledge of this continuing open and obvious violate conduct, the City of Clarksville has elected to forego enforcement of the Ordinance and instead specifically target Ms. Oberste,” the complaint stated.